TOI Online Gets A Grip On Digital Analytics From Gunjan Aggarwal

Online, February 20, 2012 (Newswire.com) - "Data is useless" in understanding the performance of any story or digital marketing campaign, Gunjan Aggarwal, a former graduate of ISB, Associate Dean - 9.9 School of Convergence and Director of E-squared, stated when she addressed a team from Times of India Online in a training session.

"All too often we don't use the information effectively enough. Instead insight, and then action, is the key to put us on the right course of action" she said. "These are some of the more important, and under-utilized, metrics that can help find performance breakthroughs - and it's critical for anyone involved to get this part right".

With the proliferation of new digital channels such as social media, video and mobile, the management of data and then the enabling of analysis and action from that data is becoming a much bigger challenge, even for large companies such as TOI. What has proven to be a competitive disadvantage is the inability to transfer digital data out of the silos of "core analytic experts" and into the hands of senior business executives, as well as managers who run the day-to-day marketing, commerce and content operations - and this is what Gunjan Aggarwal, in her meeting with TOI, aimed to highlight.

"Until now I would have to wait for weeks for my analytics team to give me data on the portal, but after this training I can see how competition is doing" said a participant, adding "what is the typical bounce rate for our website, how to analyze custom variables such as identifying previous purchasers, which keywords are driving traffic to other sites ... all this and other useful stuff, ushered for me a much greater vision into the management of Digital Analytics".

It was one of the most enjoyable training sessions undertaken by Gunjan. She said: "It is one thing training students - but it's another to catechize the team from TOI. They were all already so online savvy - but it was a great experience to share how to relate bounce rate to exit rate. How the analytics leave no room for ambiguity on good content vs. bad content. Simply a brilliant audience!" she said.